New York Valentine (22 page)

‘My famous NBF lives round there,’ Freddie added.

‘So who’s that?’ Connor asked.

‘Emily Wilmington.’

‘Emily Wilmington?’ Annie repeated ‘No way.’

‘Yes way. Waaaaay yes.’

‘I’ve seen her. She lives on Elena’s street,’ Lana chipped in. ‘That’s where we’re staying.’

‘Are you on 16th? Get outta here.’

‘Do you know Emily Wilmington?’ Annie asked.

‘Of course I know her, she’s my NBF.’

‘Would you give her one of our dresses?’

‘Mum!! That’s a brilliant idea!’ Lana exclaimed.

‘Well … yeah … if I like your dress enough, then I will pass it on to her. She gets a lot of stuff and, believe me, most of it is …’ Freddie pulled a face, ‘sooooo tacky.’

‘Our dresses are definitely not tacky,’ Lana said sternly.

‘Lana …’ Annie turned to her daughter, ‘has Elena told you? She wants to have a fashion show, so that all our potential customers can see just how amazing the new dresses are.’

‘A fashion show? Genius!’ Lana agreed.

‘A fashion show?’ Freddie clapped his hands gleefully. ‘Waaaaaay exciting. I know this hotel. Soooo cool. My friend’s the manager, I’m sure we could do a deal.’

‘Will you invite Emily to our fashion show?’ Lana asked quickly.

‘I will ask her but her schedule …’ Freddie rolled his eyes, ‘impossible!’

Annie couldn’t help smiling at Connor’s NBF, Freddie, who was also Emily’s NBF. It was a complex web of relationships.

‘Having a lovely time, Annie?’ Connor asked, moving his arm around her, ‘or missing home?’

‘You know, sort of both. If I don’t think about home, I am having the best time ever. But as soon as I stop for a moment to think about the babies, I miss them very much.’

‘Time for another cocktail.’

‘Maybe. What do you think of Lana, by the way?’ Annie asked in a whisper. ‘Don’t you think she’s turning out so beautiful?’

Connor turned and took a long appraising look at Annie’s daughter, who was currently deep in conversation with personal trainer Gawain. In true personal trainer mode, Gawain was drinking a grassy green pure vegetable and wheatgrass concoction.

‘Roddy’s looks and your brains,’ Connor said cheekily, ‘a totally winning combination. She is going to go very far.’

Annie smacked his arm: ‘Roddy’s looks? Don’t I have any looks left?’

‘Nah, not really. You’re a saggy mum now. That is your USR.’

When Connor saw how much this made Annie’s face fall, he promptly called Gawain over.

Gawain, the buffest, trimmest man Annie had ever set eyes upon, positively skipped across to sit beside them. He was so dainty and light on his feet, Annie was convinced that he must once have been a ballet dancer. His muscles were firm and tight but tiny in the way she’d seen on the occasional dancer body she’d helped to dress in her days at The Store.

‘Hi there, I’m Gawain, professional body re-sculptor, proprietor of Train with Gawain,
trademark,’
he said and held out his hand for her to shake.

She took his hand and shook it, although he’d done this only thirty minutes or so before when he’d come in and met her the first time. Maybe it was a self-promotion thing. He aimed to tell you his name and his profession so often that you always remembered him.

‘Gawain, my darling,’ Connor began, ‘Annie and I were talking about her physique. She’s on television in Britain, you know.’

Annie could have done with slightly less of the appalled surprise in Gawain’s,
‘Really?’

‘Yes and, just like me, she could do with a little shape-up, don’t you think?’

‘Stand up,’ Gawain instructed Annie.

Annie really did not want to stand up in some hipper-than-hot Manhattan bar and be professionally appraised by a body re-sculptor. But Connor prodded her and she got to her feet.

Now everyone at the two tables they’d occupied was looking at her.

‘Yeah … I’m getting it,’ Gawain said, ‘and turn.’

Annie shuffled round in the tight space, trying to ensure that her well-padded derrière didn’t deal a death blow to any of the astronomically expensive cocktails.

Gawain leaned over and prodded a surprisingly sharp index finger into her lower buttock. When she wheeled about in surprise, the finger went into the rounded bulge of flab around her tummy.

‘I’m checking out the muscle structure,’ he told her.

Muscle structure? Well in that case, she really didn’t think he would find what he was looking for.

‘Have you ever been in shape?’

Annie, still standing, not sure if she was allowed to sit down again or not, considered this question. She’d spent a lot of her adult life running after small children, running up and down stairs and walking very fast along London pavements in high heels. All this activity had kept her relatively slim in the past. But since the arrival of the twins, there had been much less walking, much more snacking, and the weight/food/activity equilibrium had been shot to bits.

But gyms … workouts, sit-ups, weights and all that stuff. Dinah was into all that. Not Annie. Not at all. She’d set foot in a gym once or twice, but so long ago she couldn’t even remember much about it.

‘Well … I walk a lot,’ Annie replied, defensively.

Gawain laughed and shook his head. ‘You walk?! Walking is not exercise. Walking is how you get to the gym.’

‘So?’ Connor broke in. ‘What should she do? Where should she get started? I know you can help, because you work miracles.’

‘Getting people who’ve been in shape back into shape is hard work but it can be done. Getting people who’ve never been in shape into any kind of shape at all is kinda tough,’ Gawain declared. ‘They’ve got no muscles, they’ve got no aerobic function, and they don’t know what hard gym work is all about. Plus their mental attitude usually sucks.’

‘Oh, and there I was thinking you weren’t going to be nice about me,’ Annie said, her face reddening.

‘If you’ve never been fit before, lady, it is going to be really, really tough to get fit. And that is the absolutely honest truth. You’re going to have to want to be fit with every fibre of your being. You’re going to have to want to work out every single day way past the point of throwing up with pain.’

‘Lovely.’

‘This is my card.’ He handed it over to her. ‘We could have one introductory session, I can assess you, I can give you a basic plan and you can see if you’re going to be able to tough it out.’

Before she could get out the words, ‘No thanks’, Connor butted in with, ‘If I buy it for her, Gawain, how much? Mates rates?’

Gawain blessed Connor with a perfectly white-toothed smile: ‘For you, Connor McCabe, only $400.’

‘Deal,’ Connor said.

Annie gasped in horror. Not just at the phenomenal price but at the fact that Connor was buying it for her. If he bought it, he might even make her go!

‘I’ll add it to your bill,’ Gawain told Connor, then brought out his phone, flipped through to the diary and asked Annie when she could fit the session into her schedule.

Annie felt like a bunny in the headlights.

‘Ummm … the next few days are very hectic,’ she stalled, ‘we’re preparing for this fashion show.’

Now Lana was leaning in, getting up to speed with the conversation.

‘Are you going to “Train with Gawain – trademark”?’ she asked, trying not to giggle. ‘That is so cool, Mum. I can’t believe you’re going to do that. He’s really, really good. He was just telling me about his special squats, guaranteed to lift your butt by at least two inches – “trademark”.’

‘I don’t know. We’ll be so busy with the show.’

‘Squeeze it in, Mum,’ Lana urged. ‘C’mon, early one morning, maybe?’

‘That would be perfect,’ Gawain confirmed. ‘I have a 5.30a.m. slot. The gym does get really busy after 6.30 with my trader clients who need to be at their desks by 8a.m.’

‘5.30a.m.??’

Annie wasn’t sure if she’d heard properly.

Yes, jet lag might have been working for her on the first few days in town, allowing for some outrageously early mornings, but now she stayed out late and lay in bed till 8.30.am. just like all the other fashionistas in her apartment.

‘5.30a.m. on Friday?’ Gawain asked, nail poised over his phone.

‘Fine,’ Annie replied, completely confident that something would come up and she would be able to back out of this torment.

Tiffany’s assistant:

White shirt (Gap)
Black suit (Uniform)
Comfortable black trainers (Geox)
Diamond earring (Tiffany’s with staff discount)
Watch (Tiffany’s with discount)
Total est. cost: $620

‘ … always very happy to talk …’

It was 8.30p.m. and growing dark when Annie managed to extricate herself from the ‘Connor comes to NYC’ reunion party. Both Elena and Lana tried to persuade her to stay on, but Annie needed to get away from Gawain’s critical gaze and dieting suggestions.

She’d been in New York for nearly three weeks and there were still so many places that she hadn’t seen. With Ed, she’d chalked off a few museums, so she wasn’t going to worry about that too much, but there were still so many unvisited shops!

She hadn’t yet set foot inside a Coach handbag store, although Coach was the bag every second New Yorker she passed was carrying. She still hadn’t been into a typically US jeans warehouse, or to Century 21, Bergdorf Goodman, Dooney & Bourke, Brooks Brothers or to any of the famous New York names she’d promised herself she would at least browse around.

Hurrying towards the top of Fifth Avenue, she was delighted to see that she still had a good hour or so before the shops closed.

And here was Tiffany’s – the fabulously famous Fifth Avenue jewellers.

Right here.

She couldn’t possibly walk past the windows, thinking of Audrey Hepburn, without going in to take a little look.

Inside the store, it was cool and glittery and much bigger than she had expected: a vast ground floor, then elevators at the back leading to even more dazzling goodies. Smart and sophisticated sales staff stood behind the glass cases where Tiffany’s jewelled delights were beautifully displayed. Annie walked slowly past key-shaped pendants encrusted with diamonds.

‘Good evening, ma’am and how are you today?’ the salesman behind a counter began with a fresh and friendly smile, although he must have asked the question hundreds of times today.

‘I’m great, thanks, but I think I’ll keep on walking … there are too many diamonds here for me.’

‘I’m always very happy to talk, if you need me,’ he added with direct eye contact and another smile. Whoa … now that was service.

As she rounded a cabinet studded with some of the most graceful diamond necklaces she had ever seen, her phone began to ring. She was delighted to hear the deep and melodious tones of her favourite multimillionairess on the other end of the line.

‘Annnnnaaaah,’ Svetlana began, ‘what is the news from New York?’

‘Svetlana, hello!’

Eyes widening at the price tag on the diamond pendant she’d been admiring, Annie added: ‘I’m in Tiffany’s … I was just thinking of you.’

‘Tscha, Tiffany’s for tourists, go to Harry Winston or Cartier, if you like to buy something nice.’

‘I wasn’t really buying. I was looking.’

‘Buy!’ Svetlana instructed, ‘you have some money now and your jewellery is all …’

Annie waited for the killer blow. How would Svetlana, usually dripping in hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of jewels dismiss Annie’s jewellery, which was usually an impulse buy from Accessorize?

‘Unimpressive.’

Ouch! That was understated yet harsh.

Unimpressive.

‘Well, we didn’t all marry money,’ Annie snapped, unable to stop herself.

‘Big mistake,’ came the tart reply, ‘but I not phone to talk about this. Tell me about the new dresses, the orders and the show you are organizing. I hear from Elena, of course, but I like to know what you think. Is it vorrrrking?’ she asked.

‘The dresses look brilliant. We used cheap jersey material but made them very stylish,’ Annie began with the positive, ‘but the orders are not so good, which is why we are holding the show. We’ve invited everyone who made an order to come and take a look at the dresses in the nicest setting we can find for $1,800.

‘Oh, and Bloomingdale’s has cancelled. You know that?’

‘Ya. Is very, very upsetting. But this to do with Elena finishing with Sye. Like I tell her to.’

‘You told her to finish?’ Annie bent down low to look at the cabinet in front of her. The Tiffany keys. She loved them. She wanted all of them. The slim gold key-shaped pendant on a delicate, sliver of a gold chain – would that be impressive enough for Svetlana? No, Svetlana would treat herself to the huge platinum one, smothered in diamonds, with the five-figure price tag.

‘Ya,’ Svetlana replied casually.

‘And she did that for you?’

Annie decided she would keep the information that Elena and Sye were totally back together to herself, for now.

‘Ya, I tell her not to waste time on some photographer whose mother work in clothes store. This is waste of her beautiful talents.’

‘She should be marrying rich?’

‘Of courrrrrse, just like her mama.’

Now Annie felt tetchy enough to remind Svetlana: ‘The rich men did not make you very happy.’

‘No. But divorce settlements did.’

‘Only the last one. And remember how he tried to get away with leaving you nothing.’

‘All forgotten now I have my millions and my Harry.’

It had, in the end, worked out very nicely for Svetlana, Annie had to admit. And it was no use griping that she hadn’t worked hard to get where she was today.

Being a millionaire’s wife was one very, very high maintenance career choice. It explained why Svetlana had ‘settled’ for just a ‘very wealthy’ man for husband number five. Harry loved her just the way she was, apparently.

Just the way Svetlana was involved a daily personal trainer, a live-in maid, quarterly Botox, anti-ageing laser treatments, jewels, furs, and purely designer clothes and accessories.

This explained why Svetlana, believed to be in her late forties, looked like most women did in their mid-twenties.

‘Where is the show? Has Elena picked good place?’